I have a dell laptop and it turns on and then it asks for a password which i do not know or have the laptop was given to me is there away of getting around this

Not that we can tell you about! Nothing personal but there are too many questions of this sort that are used by individuals to access others computers and lay havoc.

Your choices :
1) go back to the person that gave you the laptop and get the password from them
2) google for another answer
3) reformat and reinstall the operating system and make sure that you remove the passwords or you write them down so as not to forget them.